Turf maintenance equipment such as lawn mowers, ride-on material spreader/sprayers, and the like are known. This sort of equipment often includes mechanically operated subsystems that are actuated by push-pull cables. In general, a push-pull cable is a device adapted to displace a movable member by remotely applying a pushing and/or pulling force via a cable wire sliding within a cable housing. The cable wire is connected both to the movable member as well as to a remote actuator, and the cable housing is typically secured to structure at or near each of its ends.
While push-pull cables have proven to be more than adequate for many applications, drawbacks exist. For example, when pushing and pulling against a resistive mechanical load having an axis that is offset from an axis of the cable wire, an eccentric load may be imparted to the cable wire. If such forces are sufficiently high, the cable wire may deflect (e.g., bow outwardly) from the desired axial direction and thereby fail to provide the intended translational displacement of the movable member.